Tag Archives: New Year’s

Oh my Gosh, it’s beginning to get boring: I haven’t written on this blog in almost a month. I want so badly to write more in 2018, but instead of wrting on this blog, I’m writing brief entries in my journal on my phone. I love it, don’t get me wrong, but I love my blog too.

It has been on my mind for a while to start writing in diary style on my blog. Of course, I can’t share everything I can in my private journal here, but I can share some things. I love the personal mental health bloggers who share what it’s like living with mental illness on a day-to-day basis. So for this purpose, I’ve created the “Diary” category on my blog. Feel free to skip these entries if you’re not interested in them, but if you are, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Today, I’m sharing about the first week of 2018, obviously.

The year didn’t start out that well. I was a bit overloaded and stressed out. I was perseverating on finding a good journaling app for my phone, because I badly wanted to start journaling privately again in 2018. I’ve tried a few apps on the computer and a dozen websites, but I can’t find any that work. By 12AM Monday, I said a quick “Happy new year” to my husband and sister-in-law, who was celebrating with us, only to return to my phone again. In the end, I found a great app: Dyrii. Still, judging by how easily I write this post versus my journal entries, I’m finding using Notepad on my computer is still easier than my iPhone.

I had been going to day activities as normal between Christmas and New year’s, so I only had Monday off, but it felt rather strange to return on Tuesday. I had been informed before the holidays that we’d be getting three new clients in my group at day activities in January. For those who don’t know, I go to a sensory-based group for people with severe intellectual and multiple disabilities. All clients except for me need help with their personal care. The reason this group still fits me is that I’m very easily overloaded and prefer the sensory way of learning. We currently have one group of six clients, including me, in the main room and two clients who are very easily overstimulated in the adjacent room. Come January, I and two of the other current clients would move into the adjacent room with these two clients who are already there. As it turned out, that hasn’t happened yet, because the new clients aren’t there yet.

The total group size will grow from eight to eleven. We won’t get extra staff. This was a stressor to me, as was all the talk about the one-on-one for two clients that needs to be well-arranged in order to make this work, as well as the talk about a client needing one-on-one for meals. It was suggested there’d be no more activities but just meals and personal care moments. This suggestion was made on Wednesday, when I was already pretty badly overloaded and stressed out. I tried to calm myself by thinking I could use my computer or phone if I wanted to do something but there’d be no support available. So I retreated into the adjacent room to use my phone, only to be overwhelmed by people yelling in the corridor. This sent me into full-blown meltdown. I mean, if I can’t use the adjacent room without being overwhelmd now, how will I do so once my two fellow clients join me? I know these are the quietest clients, but still.

Looking back, I am lucky that my staff didn’t see the entire event. I banged my head against a wall, which my husband later asked about whether it got me suspended from day activities. I only then realized that it could have. The only part my staff witnessed was me trying to run away and being pretty irritable. My staff took me to the snoezelen (sensory) room and I had to stay there for fifteen miutes. Then she returned and we talked stuff through.

I called my mental health team, which is a kind of team that always has a community psychiatric nurse on call during office hours, as soon as I got home. The on-call CPN advised me to always have a PRN Ativan with me. I used to always have one with me until my last overdose, when my husband took them away. I haven’t needed it since. The on-call CPN also advised me to call the out-of-hours phone number I’d been given last week whenever I need it. I had been hesitant to call them during the new year’s week-end, as I reasoned my husband was home so I should be able to work out things with him. I haven’t needed to call them since speaking to that CPN though. In fact, I’m pretty calm now. Maybe I needed to melt down in order to calm down again.